


Till I Wake Your Ghost

by Arlene0401



Series: Tumblr drabbles and oneshots 2016 [20]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Asexual Character, Fluff, Ghost Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), M/M, Original Character(s), Ouija, okay it's tagged major character death but it's not sad, psychic Eren, seances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 14:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8405899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlene0401/pseuds/Arlene0401
Summary: Eren isn't a fraud, not really. All his seances are held with genuine ghosts.No one has to know that it's not Aunt Prunella or Uncle St. John hovering over the ouija board, but Levi.





	

**Author's Note:**

> It's Halloween! And I haven't written ereri in so long! So have some not really spoopy ereris.
> 
> Okay, for those who have difficulty dealing with character death: Levi is a ghost in this story, and Eren dies too, but it's neither graphic nor sad.
> 
> You can find my SNK and personal blog under [glassesgirl0401](http://glassesgirl0401.tumblr.com)

“Of course, Mrs Brimble-Jones. I’ll see you on Thursday night then. No, the pleasure is mine. Goodbye, Mrs Brimble-Jones.”

 

Eren disconnected, heaved a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. Only listening to the woman’s shrill buzzsawing through the phone was bad enough - he already knew that he would end Thursday night with a pounding headache and a desperate urge for gin.

 

“Levi, did you listen?”

 

“No, what’s up?”

 

“Mrs Brimble-Jones is coming on Thursday, eight sharp.”

 

“Oh noooo, not that old nut cutter,” Levi griped. “Well, you have fun, I’ll be out then.”

 

“But Levi, you know I need your help.”

 

No reply.

 

“Please? Pretty please?”

 

Instead of an answer, Eren’s hair was ruffled. He let out a relieved: “Thank you, Levi.”

 

“I’m not getting paid enough for this.” Levi’s voice moved away into the next room.

 

“I’m not paying you anything,” Eren grinned.

 

“My point exactly.”

 

**********

 

Depending on your morality and views, Eren was a swindler. He himself thought he was better than most in his profession. To bolster his income, he advertised as a psychic, connecting people to their late loved ones via his ouija board. 

 

But unlike most of his colleagues, Eren could really speak to ghosts.

 

Like Levi.

 

Levi had been the first ghost Eren encountered, drifting through his apartment with a scrunched up nose and a tight-lipped: “How can you live in this pigsty? It’s disgusting.” Yet Levi had stuck around, most of the time as a disembodied voice. Physical manifestation was very demanding, so he reserved moving or touching things or making himself visible to special occasions.

 

Then, after learning he could talk to other ghosts as well, and stumbling over an old ouija board on a flea market, Eren had had the brilliant idea of working as a medium. In the beginning, the results were not really satisfying, until Levi agreed to help as guiding spirit. He assisted those ghosts that were too weak to communicate themselves. At times, he kept less… desirable entities away. If you were psychic you could attract things from other realms that you didn’t really want to have in your living room. But with Levi as his bouncer, Eren never needed to worry.

 

Then, there were clients whose departed friends and relatives had good reason to avoid. Like Imogen Brimble-Jones.

 

She requested to speak with her late husband on a regular basis, whereas Mr Rupert Brimble preferred to enjoy his afterlife in peace and tranquility without being summoned to lengthy recounts about his spouse’s latest Whist round with Felicity Pemberton and Cordelia Tricklebank and sermons about her bunion and the scandal at the church parish’s pie sale.

 

In the beginning, Levi had tried to tackle and force uncooperative souls, but that only ended up with expletives and the ouija board swept off the table. Therefore, he took to playing the part of the lost one. Usually to the clients’ satisfaction, although some of them were mildly concerned about Aunt Prunella’s language.

 

And finally, there were the souls who could not be reached. Levi had explained to Eren that in fact most people went elsewhere when they died and only few stayed behind like himself. But he refused to go into details, and stubbornly repeated that he didn’t know. Not only him, but all ghosts that Eren contacted were very evasive on the subject. After months of prodding, cajoling, pouting and trick questions Eren eventually gave up and decided he didn’t really need to know. In any case, for these departed souls Levi played the substitute as well.

 

And so Eren didn’t see himself as a fraud. His clients really got to talk with ghosts (even if in many cases it was not the person they believed), and they got their money’s worth. Some of them, like Mrs Brimble-Jones, seemed quietly enraged that someone had passed on without their consent, and simply continued to monopolise the dead like they had the living. Others were genuinely worried or missed their loved ones, and still others carried invisible burdens - confessions to give, amendments to make so they could move on. 

 

Eren had a good intuition and could often see when it was better for a client to finally bid farewell and let go, and managed to gently nudge them in the desired direction. Of course it would pay better to keep them coming, but he couldn’t have looked at himself in the mirror. Levi often poked fun at him for being such an altruistic softie, but Eren knew that he secretly agreed.

 

The current evening brought nothing worse than Miss Rosalie Swern, a tiny, birdlike lady with an immaculate hair bun and elegant twin sets that despite all her efforts were covered in an abundance of cat hair. She always brought homemade ginger snaps for Eren (with attached cat hair) and gossiped with her - ahem, ahem -  _ special _ friend Celestia Fothergill, who had succumbed to pneumonia twenty years prior. Miss Fothergill was a ghost who was as energetic as her friend and showed up at the first summoning, so Levi had nothing to do but hover around and grin at the two ladies’ exchange. Celestia had just as much to report as Rosalie, and the planchette swished around the ouija board so fast that Eren had difficulty keeping track. He kept his fingers on the planchette, tongue stuck between his teeth and ears read partly from concentration and partly from the unbelievable stories. Until meeting Ms Swern he had thought that elderly unwed ladies were prudish and naive and mostly interested in knitting circles and bargain hunting. But the couple grew weed behind their garden shack, stirred a blackcurrant liqueur that made your ears smoke and had obviously had  _ lots _ of fun together.

 

After finally getting rid of the Ms Swern and clearing up the table Eren yawned and headed to the shower. Soon his voice drifted lowly through the bathroom door.

 

“If I walk down this hallway  
Tonight it's too quiet  
So I pad through the dark  
And call you on the phone  
Push your old nummer  
And let your house ring  
Till I wake your ghost

 

Let him walk down your hallway  
It's not this quiet  
Slide down your receiver  
Stand across the wire  
Follow my number  
Slide into my hand…”

 

If Levi still had a physical body, he would pad around on his tippy-toes. Eren sang off-key, and Levi didn’t like the song, but he still loved hearing Eren sing. He sat his ethereal self on the floor outside the bathroom and listened. Of course, the closed door wouldn’t keep him outside if he wanted to enter, but he preferred giving Eren his privacy. 

 

Levi didn’t really know why he was kept back in this form, but he had a pretty clear idea why he hung around with Eren. That was just so fucking typical for a loser like him - spending a lifetime unloved and unloving, and falling head over heels for someone when he was dead. Levi had never understood sex, never wanted sex, and was wary of romantic attraction because it seemed an unspoken but general agreement that romance led to sex. The one or two crushes he’d experienced had been - well, crushed, because the persons in question had not taken it kindly that he was unable to take a relationship to a physical level. Eren didn’t pity him, didn’t prod him with personal questions and generally treated him like a normal human being. He had developed an unfailing sense of where Levi was even when he was invisible, never accidentally stepped through him and looked in his direction when they talked. Sometimes he absent-mindedly set out a mug or plate for Levi and once even poured him tea before realising his mistake.

 

Night time was their calmest time. During the day, they joked and bantered, like friends or roommates did, but darkness seemed to dull their edges, took down defences. Instead of reading in bed, Eren mostly asked Levi to stay and talk until he drifted off. There was something endearingly unguarded in a tired Eren, not caring whether Levi judged him for this trait of insecurity. Levi never pressed for details, only knew that Eren’s mother had died when he was still little, and he suspected that his difficulties falling asleep alone stemmed from that.

 

Eyes half closed, Eren lurched into the bedroom and flung himself into bed. Levi didn’t need to be prompted to settle down next to him. 

 

“Looking forward to Thursday?”

 

Eren just groaned. “Please don’t remind me.” He adjusted his pillow and fell silent, and Levi thought he had already fallen asleep when he spoke again.

 

“They must have been so happy together… although they had to keep up the facade all this years. Even now, they don’t mourn that they’re separated, they rejoice in the other one’s wellbeing. And then you have the Mrs Brimble-Jones’ of this world. You know, I don’t get why people spend a lifetime with someone they don’t love.”

 

“I think many people give in to convention and society’s pressure, or they are blinded by their own ambitions, and they think they can settle without love. What I don’t get is why they are hellbent on making each other’s life miserable.”

 

Eren turned to his side, facing Levi’s direction. “Me neither. But to me, a life with a companion who isn’t my friend and my love would be miserable by itself. I’m glad you’re by my side, Levi.”

 

There was a moment’s silence, and when Levi answered, his voice was carefully light. “Well, I’m your invisible pal alright, but you do realise that I can’t replace real humans. One day you’ll find your match and raise a houseful of adorable little snot noses.”

 

Eren frowned. “But I found my match. I don’t want anyone but you, Levi.”

 

“Eren…”

  
  


“I know we can’t go out for dinner, and that we can’t give each other presents, and that we can’t touch. I know you can’t pick flowers for me, and that I can’t hold you when you cry. And I know that even if you were alive you couldn’t have a sexual relationship with anyone. But what we have, what we share, it’s worth so much more to me. There is no one who knows and understands me like you do. There is no one I care more about than you.”

 

“Eren Yeager, was that a proposal?”

 

Eren blushed, thankful that it was mostly hidden in the dim room. “Well - yes?”

 

Moonlight cast silvery light on the sheets of his bed. In the pale glow, he watched a figure slowly forming, translucent and greyish, like a faded old photograph. Levi lay on his side, head propped up on one hand, and regarded him with a soft smile. 

 

“I want to stay with you, too. You mean everything to me, Eren.”

 

He reached out with one hand and brushed over Eren’s cheek, and for a fraction of a moment, Eren could feel the touch of his palm. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

 

Then Levi faded away again, and Eren rolled into a ball, grinning happily to himself. 

 

“Damn, the other ghosts will find no end teasing me as a biophiliac. I hope you’re satisfied with yourself.”

 

“I’m not sorry at all,” Eren chuckled and fell asleep.

 

When morning broke, it brought tea, more off-key singing (additionally distorted by the grimaces Eren made while shaving), light banter over the newspaper and porridge.

 

It also brought a milk truck that Eren failed to notice as he ran for the bus stop.

 

“Jeez, that was close,” he muttered as he got up and brushed himself off. Then he looked up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the truck had come to a screeching halt, but he payed no attention. Before him on the sidewalk stood Levi. Levi, who was fully visible in bright daylight, Levi with a shocked expression as if he’d just seen a ghost. 

 

Step by tiny step, Eren walked up to him, and Levi didn’t blur, didn’t fade, seemed in fact just as solid and real as himself.

 

“Levi… what… why…” With trembling fingers, he reached out. Levi flinched minutely, but held still as Eren gingerly touched his hair with a deeply puzzled expression.

 

Suddenly, Eren’s eyes widened, and he touched his own cheek, then made to turn around. Levi quickly caught his arm.

 

“Don’t… Eren. Don’t look. You really don’t want to see.”

 

Eren laughed shakily. “That bad, huh?”

 

“Not really, but - it’s better not to see yourself. Believe me.”

 

They stared at each other, Levi’s hand still on Eren’s arm, so amazingly warm and real.

 

“So, what happens now? Do we spook together or something?”

 

Around them, the world started to vanish. The colours bled out of the day and harsh contours dissolved into soft greys. The noises and hubbub ebbed away. 

 

They were surrounded by a soft, golden glow that had no visible source. It wasn’t really light but the  _ essence _ of light, they could taste and smell and hear it, and it filled them with peace and calmness.

 

“I think we’re going to another place,” Levi said, slipping his hand into Eren’s.

 

“Do you know what it is?”

 

“No. but I guess I was waiting all this time so I could go there with you.”

 

Slowly, they started walking, in no direction in particular, confident that their feet would take them to the right place eventually.

 

“And you know what the best thing is, Eren?”

 

“No?”

 

“Never again will we have to listen to good old Imogen’s bleating.”

 

Their laughter faded into the distance as they disappeared in the golden haze.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title and lyrics taken from "Your Ghost" by Kristin Hersh.


End file.
